Nortel Networks Tuesday took a break from cranking out its leading fiber-
optics hardware to release a portfolio of networking products that speed
the delivery of services.
While the idea of speeding up content delivery is nothing new, how Nortel is
approaching it is to focus on personalization. The solutions will allow
customers to identify individual Web users as well as deliver custom content
and services.
Content will target audiences based on what is requested, access method and
device, physical location and personal preferences.
Dominic Orr, president of content networking at Nortel, predicted that
“subscriber and content edges represent the new Internet control points,
where user policies and request routing decisions will be made.”
The personalization factor is key for attracting ISPs, who also have Nortel
rivals Cisco Systems Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc. to appeal to for new
hardware.
Key among the new products is the Nortel Networks’ Shasta personal content
portal, which lets service providers offer personalized content services,
while
introducing new service models and revenue opportunities. When paired with
Nortel’s Shasta 5000 Broadband Service Node, the portal controls content
access, steer subscribers and deliver services on a per-subscriber basis.
With the help of its Alteon purchase from last July, Nortel accompanies the
portal with an Alteon personal content
director that has been found to go beyond current DNS-based request routing
implementations to provide routing based on real-time network path
reliability and load.
For the streaming media side of things, Nortel also released a personal
content cache and distribution manager. These products feature content
pinning and live stream splitting and caching.
The Canada-based hardware giant also extended its product combo with Alteon
to offer new switching systems, which were designed to speed up networks.
Alteon 780 runs at 256 gigabits-per-second and combines integrated layers
2-3 switching and routing with comprehensive layers 4-7 content-intelligent
switching applications.
Alteon personal content director, Alteon personal content cache and Shasta
personal content portal are available immediately.
Alteon 780 and Alteon content distribution manager are expected to be
available in February and June of this year, respectively.
